The Role of Textbooks in a Language Program

Reflection of Students’ Cultural Milieu: In the words of Pearson, Nelson, Titsworth and Harter (2003:212), “culture can be defined as a system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and rituals that the members of a society use to cope with one another and with their world.” We make sense of the world around us through our culture. The experiences we have had in life go a long way to influence our thoughts, words, actions, and so on. Experience plays a major role in learning. It has been established that learners learn faster when the contents of their lessons reflect their experiences.

2.2 The role of textbooks in second language acquisition
Without a textbook learners may not get a specific syllabus “that has been systematically planned and developed” and a “central core” of learning said Richard (2009). He also added that, textbooks maintain quality and without textbook stages of learning cannot be specified. So, if a textbook which maintains the quality can be chosen for the learners, it can provide not only the bookish knowledge but also some variety of resources such as- “CDs and cassettes, videos, CD ROMs and a comprehensive guideline for the teachers as well”. According to O'Roark (2001), people usually want to learn a second language so that they can be able to communicate with people in the target language and when a student acquires a second language, he/she ensures that this ability will stays permanently with him. So, it is important to use a textbook that will most effectively allow a student to become interested in and comfortable with their second language. According to Stephen Krashen, language acquisition does not means extensive use of conscious grammatical rules, and “does not require tedious drill”. He also added that meaningful interaction in the target language is enough to learn a new language. In that case, selecting appropriate material or textbook can play an important role. According to Graves (2000), has stated that in terms of selecting textbooks, teachers can play a very important role. they can read the table of content and evaluate them to justify whether the textbooks can meet the students‟ need or not and then according to the evaluation, they can adapt the textbook which requires a little bit modification or they can use the books as it is (p. 176). Jim Scrivener has given in his book “learning teaching” many activities which requires interaction and communication in target language. The activities that are given in the book- group discussion and classroom interaction in the target language. These activities will promote speaking and listening opportunities in the target language. On the other hand learning and teaching can be specified with the help of a curriculum that explains how the teacher will accomplish this and techniques or daily strategies for teaching (Brown, 57).
It is already mentioned above by Davis (1995), that textbooks should be selected “according to their attractiveness”. Similarly, Sheldon (1988: 243) added that, textbooks those have a mix of graphical material and text can provide comprehensible input to the students and make them attracted towards the book.
Haseldon (2011) said that nowadays people are getting away from books, “which is a shame”. Though foreign language textbooks serve the stages for methodological approaches but students get confused that which methodology they should follow since different textbooks talks about different methodologies, according to Harlen (2000). Moreover Lenon (2015) has represented the comment of Richard Culatta (the US department for education). He said that, when books become outdated it is difficult and time consuming to update the books while in websites it is easier to update the information.Furthermore, Meyers (n. d), contended that, books can only cover a limited area of a language. Further, these books are sometimes expensive to buy whereas with the help of internet a huge area can be covered and many resources can be found all together. He also added that, one textbook will contain the thought of only one writer, whereas, through internet students can get a lot of writers‟ thoughts together within few hours.
Technologyhas made the language learning easy for the students. According to Warschauer (2000), World Wide Web offers a “vast area of resources”. He further added that, since internet is a vast medium, it can replace textbooks and libraries. Moreover, Motteram (2013) claimed that, computer based learning help learners to work individually and it also helps them not only in learning language but also work with the target language. He also added that, it always encourages students to learn things through language. However, according to Kasanga (1996), because of internet, second language acquisition has been increased among students.
Additionally, internet helps students to interact with foreign language speakers and help them to practice in real life situation such as- negotiation, discussion, chatting etc. according to (LeLoup and Ponterio, 1997) which textbook lacks. According to singhal (1997), online learning gives the opportunities of creative presentation such as essays, poetry, stories etc. to the students.
However, “lack of motivation is a major cause for students not learning a second language proficiently” according to Toussaint (2005). In that case, internet plays a great role to stimulate second language acquisition. Students show interest in using technology and computers for acquiring second language.
Sometimescourse books cause boredom because students and teachers get bored of using the same material and content everyday and there are less opportunities of variation. According to Charalambous (2011), textbook centered teaching cannot make class interesting because it leads to “dull and repetitious classes” and makes students de motivated to learn. Since individual learner has their own learning style, for each student, textbook may not be that much helpful.
Farooq (2011) said about individual learning style that according to dictionary of education Individual differences are those differences which exist among humans and make a single person different from another person. He also added that these differences generally occurs based on interest, attitude, values, habits, psychomotor skill, self concept. In addition, Wang and Lindvall (1984) also proposed that a learner responded to the environment according to his individual learning style and in a learning environment teacher‟s instruction is an important media to facilitate appropriate responds from a student.Some students are motivated by audio visual materials, such as- movies, youtube videos, cartoons, songs etc. According to Lightbrown and Spada (2006), second language acquisition occurs better when students get some motivation, (p.185). So students can learn better from the materials which motivate them. In fact use of textbook as an only teaching material can makes the teaching boring and controlled process which hampers teacher‟s creativity according to Richard, (1993). Moreover, Allwright, (1981:8) argues that, textbooks makes the teachers‟ role limited and that is why, teachers do not get encouraged to give enough input to the students. He also added that, textbook holds a very limited and prescribed role which does not involve students‟ participation. To support this statement, Charalambous (2011), stated that, if students can actively participate in their own learning that will help them to learn more. He also stated that, teaching same type of activity and topics does not create any good respond from students and makes the learning and teaching boring.
According toÇAKIR (2006), in recent years, the tendency to use technology in educational sectors has gained a great importance. Mostly in the case of technology the use of video is very much popular among students. Moreover, he also added that, video helps a lot in second language learning since it “stimulates and facilitates about the target language”.
According to Wright (1976:1) many media and many styles of visual presentation are really very helpful for the language learners because “all audio-visual materials have positive contributions to language learning” but these have to be used in the right situation and in the right time.
ÇAKIR (2006) again stated that, video is very much accepted by students rather than textbooks because it not only gives interest the students but it also creates a challenging environment. He also mentioned a very important point that, video makes language more comprehensible than the words of a book because students can visualize what is happening. Even teachers also like this technology because it can replace a “one hour class with a two minutes video”.
A big problem of textbook is, it mostly contains the view of the authors and their cultural surroundings, according to Mohamed, (2015). Therefore, those textbooks influence the students to involve with that culture. Moreover, (Apple, 1992; Alptekin, 1993; Risager, 1991) stated that, textbook play a prominent role in “shaping and constructing a society” because it carries some particular reality of a small section of the whole world. To support the above mentioned statement, Oakes and Saunders, (2002) added that, textbook is a particular cultural document which does not allow students any freedom of learning but it directs them in a pre organized way. Another negative aspect is-foreign textbooks focus on their culture every time, which makes the students aware about foreign culture but at the same time they lack knowledge about their own culture. The best argument against textbooks is that they represent foreign culture in front of the students. Weninger and Kiss (2013) stated about culture that, textbooks play an important role in English language acquisition as well as the culture of that target language and it influences people to adopt the culture and “become a member of that culture or community” (p.4), which shows that this thing dominates our own culture. In this regard, Schumann‟s (1986), also added that, when students learn a second language, they also get involve with the culture of that foreign language.